There have been several attempts to create a telecommunications environment in which a calling party dials a single number and the telecommunications network selects a specific destination number to which the call will be routed. The 911 emergency service is one example. When a calling party dials 911, the end office associated with the calling party translates the dialed digits into a number associated with a private network point and then routes the call to that point. In another service, and end office translates a received dialed number into an 800 number, which is then routed as a standard 800-number call. One disadvantage to this approach is that since all calls to a particular end office are translated into a single 800 number, the end office can only service a single customer.
In contrast to the switch-based systems described above, some telecommunication systems place the translation logic further away from the switch to allow a single database to serve a plurality of end offices. One such service is the Prime Number service offered by Ameritech Corporation. This service offers many advantages to businesses having several locations (e.g., a multi-location pizza restaurant). With this service, a calling party dials a number that is unique to the business, and a database location associated with that number is queried with the calling party's zip code to determine a destination number of one of the business's many locations. The call is then routed to that destination number. Each business that subscribes to this service is assigned a unique phone number, which is associated with a unique database location in the system correlating zip codes with one of the business's several locations. For example, when a calling party dials the number for Art's Pizza, that database location containing zip code/destination number information for Art's Pizza will be queried, whereas if the calling party dials the number for George's Pizza, the database location containing zip code/destination number information for George's Pizza will be queried.